I Want Some New Gods, Part 2: Divisions

I started a new pantheon this morning, resulting in 44 gods (or at least, 44 sets of domains, to be described as gods with portfolios and the like). First, I’ll start by splitting them up into groups of gods that are related somehow. I don’t particularly want them to be related by domain sets, nor even by ‘which polyhedron they started on’. For expediency, I simply rolled d8 for each one and dropped it into a group based on the result. I’ll see if I can make sense of them after this.

Random Division

Group 1

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	LE	Healing	Evil, Law, Repose, Death
	NG	Destruction	Good, Glory, Liberation, Earth
	N	Water	Trickery, Nobility, War
	N	Void	Strength, Luck, Plant
	N	Knowledge	Strength, Hunting, Travel
	N	Glory	Fire, Darkness, Destruction

Clearly Strength, Glory, and Destruction play significant roles in this group of gods, but otherwise there is no real coherence or repeated domains. I don’t have a feel for this yet. I’ll come back to it.

Group 2

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	N	Earth	Weather, Darkness, Destruction

This is a very small group indeed, and I’m not certain what to make of it. It is likely to be a cult of some sort.

Group 3

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	CN	Chaos	Strength, Trickery, Luck, Magic, Travel
	NG	Good	Fire, Prophecy, Air, Destruction, Community
	CN	Strength	Chaos, Void, Knowledge, Charm
	LN	Rune	Law, Ley Lines, Animal, Transformation
	LG	Nobility	Law, Good, Water, Madness
	CE	Magic	Chaos, Evil, Transformation, Ley Lines
	CG	Travel	Chaos, Knowledge, Madness, Good
	LE	War	Law, Water, Ley Lines, Evil
	N	Ley Lines	Rune, Magic, War
	NE	Evil	Trickery, Magic, War
	LN	Law	Sun, Healing, Community

This group is pretty big and seem fairly complete. I see all nine alignments represented, at least, and a broad range of domains. This is probably a large and powerful culture.

Group 4

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	CG	Air	Good, Chaos, Apocalypse, Protection
	N	Charm	Strength, Hunting, Plant
	N	Transformation	Rune, Luck, Magic
	N	Apocalypse	Sun, Air, Community
	N	Protection	Sun, Air, Artifice

Clearly Air, Apocalypse, Sun, and Protection are powerful, powerful forces in this culture. Given how similar the domain sets are, I expect this culture is pretty monomaniacal about the topic… but at least they’re generally Chaotic Good, so I suspect it might be dedicated to preservation through the apocalypse coming rather than dedicated to bringing the apocalypse and revelling in the destruction of everything.

Group 5

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	CE	Trickery	Chaos, Madness, Evil, Water
	CN	Luck	Chaos, Transformation, Void, Animal
	N	Madness	Trickery, Nobility, Travel
	CN	Chaos	Prophecy, Air, Artifice
	N	Death	Fire, Healing, Community

And this might be the direct foil of the previous culture. I see lots of Chaos, plus some small overlap in the other domains, and Madness and Evil. I think I’d rather live with the previous group.

Group 6

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	NE	Weather	Evil, Earth, Alchemy, Liberation
	CG	Prophecy	Good, Liberation, Chaos, Alchemy

An interesting pairing, I think. A strong split in alignment on the Liberation and Alchemy combination. I don’t have a feel for this yet, but I perhaps something to do with two competing philosophies relating to Liberation and Alchemy?

Group 7

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	LN	Law	Rune, Hunting, Nobility, Plant, War
	NE	Evil	Weather, Sun, Darkness, Healing, Artifice
	LE	Sun	Evil, Protection, Law, Apocalypse
	NE	Darkness	Evil, Repose, Earth, Glory
	CE	Artifice	Evil, Alchemy, Protection, Chaos
	LG	Community	Good, Apocalypse, Death, Law
	N	Animal	Rune, Luck, Plant
	N	Liberation	Weather, Prophecy, Destruction
	N	Repose	Fire, Darkness, Healing
	N	Alchemy	Weather, Prophecy, Artifice

I suspect this might be related to Group 4. Perhaps not in contention with them, quite, but maybe they have some shared origin. Hmm. Group 4 seems to be related to Groups 5 and 7. I expect they may be in close proximity to each other.

Group 8

Name	Alignment	Primary Domain	Secondary Domains
	LG	Hunting	Law, Charm, Good, Knowledge
	LN	Plant	Law, Animal, Charm, Void
	NG	Fire	Good, Death, Glory, Repose
	NG	Good	Hunting, Nobility, Travel

Okay, these are clearly the good guys of the region. Lots of Law, Good, Hunting, and Charm. Again a pretty tight culture, in terms of domains, so I expect a very homogeneous group at heart.

Closing Comments

These… are going to take some consideration before I can really explain them. I think that’s cool. It’s easy to make an internally-consistent and coherent group work, getting some of these to make sense will probably take me interesting places. Only eight groups, representing different cultures. I think I may want to do another complete set and either build out on this (add more cultures) or build it up (add more to each). I need to think on this some more.